Posted
by
timothy
on Saturday October 06, 2012 @09:20AM
from the welcome-to-our-prohibition-already-in-progress dept.

Penurious Penguin writes "On October 2, City Commissioners of Delray Beach finalized a policy which prohibits agencies from hiring employees who use tobacco products. Delray Beach isn't alone though; other Florida cities such as Hollywood and Hallandale Beach, require prospective employees to sign affidavits declaring themselves tobacco-free for 12 months prior to the date of application. Throughout the states, both
government and businesses are moving to ban tobacco-use beyond working hours. Many medical facilities, e.g. hospitals, have implemented or intend to implement similar policies. In some more-aggressive environments referred to as nicotine-free, employee urine-samples can be taken and tested for any presence of nicotine, not excluding that from gum or patches. Employees testing positive can be terminated. Times do change, and adaptation is often a necessary burden. But have they changed so much that we'd now postpone the Manhattan project for 12 months because Oppenheimer had toked his pipe? Would we confine our vision to the Milky Way or snub the 1373 Cincinnati because Hubble smoked his? Would we shun relativity, or shelve the works of Tolkien because he and C. S. Lewis had done the same? If so, then where will it stop?"

So far, every time there's been any attempt to make things that are dangerous to people illegal in the US, half the country has a hissy fit and insists that they should have the right to do anything and everything they please, no matter how sensible it is to just stop doing the dangerous thing.

I actually think this approach might be a reasonable compromise - and smoking pot should be legalized too, but if you want to smoke pot and get certain jobs, you can't. In other words, you're free to do whatever the hell you please in your home as long as it doesn't affect anyone else's well-being or their insurance premiums. Tough to make such an approach consistent, of course, but we may be heading in that direction when you look at all the US states that have made marijuana quasi-legal already.

If you want to smoke marijuana, then for all practical purposes you can't serve in the U.S. military, which has a rigorous drug-testing program.

I think the military should add tobacco to the list of drugs that military personnel are forbidden to use. Every military person is supposed to be combat-ready, and the effect of smoking on lung capacity alone would make them significantly less capable.

I actually can agree with most of your points, though I think many of them are somewhat moot. Most of my friends who entered, or tried to enter, the Armed Services who also smoked generally quit or dramatically cut back before joining. They had to do this to maintain the currently existing fitness requirements. Some of them did take up the habit again, but they generally were in non-combat tech jobs, and still had a lesser habit than they did before joining.

The criteria of the job is enough to either force people to stop, or to encourage them to do something about it on their own. Banning would be a bit redundant.

This topic annoys me, so some snark might sneak in. I'm pretty much against banning anything, or having employers dictate what I do at home. This includes smoking, and drinking, and various other activities, as well as politics, religion, sexual preference, and speech. If it doesn't effect performance, then it is none of your business. If your job has high enough standards, most addictions will be filtered out since they hurt performance. Beyond that, if someone enjoys a cigarette or a beer on their lunch break, it isn't anyone's business.

Maybe, but only if it can be demonstrably shown that use of a specific substance off-hours affects on job performance in ways that threaten the health and safety of other employees...and I mean demonstrably shown and not some bullshit specious what-if scenario..

You have an allergy to tobacco smoke, so it's okay to ban tobacco -- okay, you won't find too many objections.

Some people have an allergy to peanuts -- some incredibly sever, far worse than any tobacco smoke allergy. Should we ban peanuts? Maybe it makes sense in schools. Maybe that should be extended to other gov't buildings or business that serve the general public.

I have an allergy to the base in some perfumes -- my nose runs constantly, my eyes tear up, it's very unpleasant. Should we ban perfume? I'm on board!

How about this: We err on the side of freedom. Let businesses decide to allow or not allow smoking, peanuts, or perfume. We consider any policy that discriminates against workers for engaging in legal activity (smoking, eating peanuts, wearing perfume) outside of work to be unlawful.

You have an allergy to tobacco smoke, so it's okay to ban tobacco -- okay, you won't find too many objections.

Some people have an allergy to peanuts -- some incredibly sever, far worse than any tobacco smoke allergy. Should we ban peanuts? Maybe it makes sense in schools.

All daycare and K-6 in my area has banned peanuts in schools; no, I was not involved in it, but it beats a daycare worker hitting someone with a low body mass with an adult epipen. It also avoids hitting someone in the middle of a reaction with an epipen, hitting a vein, and causing an instant cerebral aneurism. Many airlines, including Delta, have voluntarily withdrawn peanut products from the in-flight snacks they offer when the flight isn't long enough that they are federally mandated to actually serve meals (or more likely, pick up a sack lunch on the way into the plane),

I have an allergy to the base in some perfumes -- my nose runs constantly, my eyes tear up, it's very unpleasant. Should we ban perfume? I'm on board!

Is it an anaphylactic reaction, or is it one that can be managed with oral H1 and/or H2 blockers? Most planes carry both benedryl (H1) and ranatidine (H2) blockers. But personally, I'd say this one is on you: your reaction comes from an aromatic with environmental exposure, it's generally manageable with over the counter medication, and you are voluntarily placing yourself in the situation where you are getting exposed. From that perspective, it might also be resonable to have DMV workers, court clerks, and other public employees refrain from bringing the allergen into situations where your presence is far less voluntary. Just like aromatized cigarette ash brought in by a smoker.

How about this: We err on the side of freedom. Let businesses decide to allow or not allow smoking, peanuts, or perfume. We consider any policy that discriminates against workers for engaging in legal activity (smoking, eating peanuts, wearing perfume) outside of work to be unlawful.

What about other substances, which I agree should be legalized, and other substances which are currently legal, such as alcohol, which would impair your performance, potentially in life threatening ways for someone? A coked-up lab tech or a drunk taxi driver are things you are only going to catch after the fact, when someone dies.

How about we take your examples to their reductio ad absurdum conclusion instead? How about we only file drunk driving charges when there are damages to person or property, and so long as they don't run over somone or into something, society minds its own business and lets them drive drunk?

To be honest, I think this anti-tobacco policy probably runs afoul of Federal anti-discrimination law.

I don't know the exact wording of the law, but in business law in college I was taught that you can't discriminate against people for engaging in legal practices that do not directly affect the job.

With few exceptions, tobacco use does not have a direct detrimental effect on workers' performance. In fact studies have generally shown smokers to be more productive than their non-smoking counterparts. (Though nobody is saying that smoking is the actual cause of that.)

So according to what my law Prof. told me, this is definitely an illegal practice. I can't wait for somebody to sue the pants off of some self-righteous company.

If smoking is so great and such a valuable right that others shouldn't be able to stop you doing it whenever and wherever you please, why do cigarette companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year just to keep convincing people they need to keep doing it?

If smoking is so great and such a valuable right that others shouldn't be able to stop you doing it whenever and wherever you please, why do cigarette companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year just to keep convincing people they need to keep doing it?

They don't. They spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year to try to get people to start smoking (or re-start as the case may be). Current smokers basically ignore most cigarette advertising as the vast majority will stick to one brand once they're accustomed to it.

I smoked for over half of my life; and just quit two weeks ago. Cigarette advertising was something that I hardly noticed before - now I see it everywhere.

Why? What's it to you? Good for the other guy if that's what he wants to do, but why do you care?

I quit about a decade ago just to see if I could. With all of those like you screaming at me about it being so addictive and destructive, I decided I needed to test it out, so I dropped it cold turkey one morning. A day later, no cravings and it wasn't bothering me at all. After a month, still no problem. Test passed.

Yes, I smoke now, because I like to smoke. I don't much care what anyone else thinks about it. I'll bet you've a lot of insufferably bad habits compared to my smoking, but you'll not see me on a pedestal complaining about them. Those are your demons, not mine.

As for the health issues, I'm well aware I'm not going to live forever, nor are you. We're arguing about this over maybe extending our lives for a decade? What a pointless argument. There's a million other medical conditions that could step in and make the point moot at any time, and a million other ways to die in a much quicker and more horrible manner at any time.

Uh huh, "Test passed". So you actively took up a habit again that is bad for your health, stinky, and expensive because you like it, but no sir, you are not addicted in any way.

I used to smoke a long time ago, but before I managed to quit permanently I went through several stints when I quit much like you did. Yet I kept going back to it, especially when hanging around other smokers. Your argument amounts to the trite, "I can quit anytime, but I don't want to."

You are a hypocrite. Us non-smokers put more crap into peoples lungs with the crap spewing out of our cars and even more so with our second hand car exhaust than the smokers with their cigarettes by a very wide margin. Our car exhaust not only stinks more, and damages MY lungs more.

Of course, if I were a lawyer, I would champion your right to run your car in your own home until you fell asleep and didn't wake up. I have absolutely no problem with that, and would represent you in court to defend your right to do so for the rest of your shortened life.

As another lifelong smoker, I'll chime in and say that is 100% true. Advertising has zero effect on me.

Addiction is "cool" like that. There is no need to advertise in order to get an addict to satisfy his addiction. His body and mind are already telling him that he must do so, and at a deep, instinctual level. The only way to explain it to someone who has been fortunate enough to avoid any form of addiction is to say that the drive is AT LEAST as powerful as the drive to eat when your hungry is. Depending on the substance in question, the drive can be every bit as powerful as the drive to breath.

So, yeah, the only need for advertising is to get new people to voluntarily submit to that scenario.

There's been a general adoption of the belief that cigarettes are incredibly addictive, as part of the campaign against smoking, and I think that has had a very detrimental effect. When somebody is told everyday that quitting smoking is nearly impossible, it becomes harder. After all, stopping smoking is, in great portion, a psychological struggle, and preconceptions will color that strongly.

If people had been raised with the idea that any idiot can quite smoking if they want, it would be much easier to stop. In fairness, though, that might lead to more people taking up the habit in the first place. Regardless, the psychological arena is the one area where perception can become truth.

There's been a general adoption of the belief that cigarettes are incredibly addictive, as part of the campaign against smoking, and I think that has had a very detrimental effect. When somebody is told everyday that quitting smoking is nearly impossible, it becomes harder. After all, stopping smoking is, in great portion, a psychological struggle, and preconceptions will color that strongly.

If people had been raised with the idea that any idiot can quite smoking if they want, it would be much easier to stop. In fairness, though, that might lead to more people taking up the habit in the first place. Regardless, the psychological arena is the one area where perception can become truth.

In fairness, I agree with the AC. Two weeks is not long enough to say that I've really "quit" yet - only stopped for the moment.

I am still suffering from extreme cravings from time to time and lesser cravings more frequently in between.

The campaign against smoking tells many lies; but the addictiveness of cigarettes is not one of them - or at least, not in all aspects. Nicotine is incredibly addictive, however not in the way most people think of addiction. It's not that smoking once or twice will get you addicted - it won't (usually). But smoking becomes "easier" once you get used to it, and after long term use, you eventually will find yourself addicted.

As a young teenager, I smoked a cigarette per DAY sometimes. There's no way I was addicted, and I could have easily stopped any time I wanted. However, when I started smoking twenty a day, I'd find myself becoming fidgety if I didn't have a cigarette every hour or two. That's when I was starting to become addicted.

There are a lot of lies told about quitting as well. The most common one I hear is "after 3 days, all of the nicotine is out of your system, and it's purely psychological after that - there is no more physical addiction."The problem with this statement is that it's half true. Generally speaking the nicotine is out of your system in about 3 days. However this does NOT mean the physical symptoms are gone. Sorry for quoting from Wikipedia, but it's easier than typing it all up myself:

Modern research shows that nicotine acts on the brain to produce a number of effects. Specifically, research examining its addictive nature has been found to show that nicotine activates the mesolimbic pathway ("reward system") – the circuitry within the brain that regulates feelings of pleasure and euphoria.

Dopamine is one of the key neurotransmitters actively involved in the brain. Research shows that by increasing the levels of dopamine within the reward circuits in the brain, nicotine acts as a chemical with intense addictive qualities. In many studies it has been shown to be more addictive than cocaine and heroin. Like other physically addictive drugs, nicotine withdrawal causes down-regulation of the production of dopamine and other stimulatory neurotransmitters as the brain attempts to compensate for artificial stimulation. As dopamine regulates the sensitivity of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors decreases. To compensate for this compensatory mechanism, the brain in turn upregulates the number of receptors, convoluting its regulatory effects with compensatory mechanisms meant to counteract other compensatory mechanisms. An example is the increase in norepinephrine, one of the successors to dopamine, which inhibit reuptake of the glutamate receptors, in charge of memory and cognition. The net effect is an increase in reward pathway sensitivity, the opposite of other addictive drugs such as cocaine and heroin, which reduce reward pathway sensitivity. This neuronal brain alteration can persist for months after administration ceases.

A very relevant sentence is that last one - "This neuronal brain alteration can persist for months after administration ceases.". That is the "physical addiction" that remains and does so for quite some tim

I have a right (a liberty in Hoefield's scheme of rights) to curse within my own home. I also have a right to live off of brownies if I so decide. I don't have that right because brownies or cursing is so "valuable" per se, but because it's my right, legally, to do what I wish within my home so long as it doesn't affect others. To carry my example, I can't curse so loudly as to disrupt my neighbors, even though I can otherwise curse - again, the issue isn't the cursing here, it's that I am disrupting my neighbors.

We can argue that smoking seems to cause a lot of health issues for non-smokers who are nearby. The majority of the research we have at this point seems to indicate a causative pattern pretty strongly. Therefore, at least in some states, you can't smoke in a restaurant or by a door way. On the other hand, there is absolutely no reason (nor does the Federal Government have the ability to) limit smoking within the privacy of your own home. I would argue that most businesses don't either unless they can prove that your smoking/non-smoking is required for your job (say, if you work at a hospital).

TLDR: "If [eating brownies] is so great and such a valuable right that others shouldn't be able to stop you doing it whenever and wherever you please, why do [brownie producing companies] spend hundred of millions of dollars every year just to keep convincing people they need to keep doing it?

Simple enough, actually. Take, for instance, abortion. If you don't believe in abortion, don't have one. DON'T try to get legislation banning abortion passed to keep everybody from having an abortion just because you don't like it for reasons I'm sure you have every right to have. In the same way, don't tell me I can't have a cigarette in my own home or car when I'm all by myself. It's my choice. I'm aware of the consequences and I choose to live with them.

Well, that's a rather poor example. The people who "don't believe in abortion", by which I assume you mean "don't believe that abortion should ever occur", predominately believe that because they equate it to murdering a helpless child.
Whether that's right or wrong, surely you wouldn't say the same thing about murder - "don't try to keep me from murdering if I want to, just because you've got a hang-up about it".
Again, not arguing the case one way or the other here, but when you think about it from from their point of view (abortion == murder), at least their strong stance is understandable.

I'd just like to add that all of you going "yay!" about this? remember the nanny state NEVER stops, and the smokers are the canaries in the coal mine. Don't forget there have already been states talking about "fat taxes" and "sweet taxes" to try to decide what YOU are allowed to eat and drink. Think it will stop there? How about a fine for every pound you are overweight, or a fine for every percent you are over ideal BMI? A fine if you have high blood pressure? After all you might be costing the dear insurance companies which we ALL will have to pay for!

Remember folks the nanny state NEVER stops, they think you don't deserve to have ANY say, Big Brother is wise, Big Brother knows what is best.

Pedophilia causes great harm to other people. Smoking causes little-if-any harm to others.

Quite aside from the general unpleasantness caused by the stench, there are a lot of documented cases of people contracting lung cancer from tobacco exposure without ever having smoked a cigarette in their life.

Oh, and also, abortion does not harm other people because a fetus is not a person.

The abortion debate should have nothing to do with whether the fetus is a person or not... the fact is that in every country where abortion was legalized, the number of women having abortions went down, because they could now get proper medical treatment and be informed of their options. Not every woman who decides she needs an abortion goes through with it, because many of them don't know about the other options available to them. Beyond that, making abortion illegal doesn't stop a woman from having an abortion, it just means she's less likely to have proper medical supervision before/after, and as a result, more likely to develop complications from the procedure.

No one want's to hear it, and it's about 20-30 years too late, but the effects of secondary smoke were "proved" through bogus statistics and flat out lying.

The EPA examined about 12 studies on the effects of second-hand smoke, most of them from Europe (as I remember). Of the dozen or so studies, almost all of them showed no measurable effect on health from secondary smoke. Two of them showed a very slight negative effect, and one of them showed that secondary smoke was good for you.

The EPA then turned to something called a "meta study" which was supposed to be a way of reviewing an experiment which did not give your the results you expected/wanted. The meta study was supposed to identify information that was not gathered or incorrectly measured or classified. The objective of a meta-study was to design a new study that would be more accurate. Then you were supposed to go back and do the research again, using what you had learned.

Instead, the EPA declared that the meta-study "proved" what they wanted - that secondary smoke was bad for your health. A number of scientists and mathematicians objected and were shouted down and ignored. Once this became established scientific doctrine, every researcher suddenly found very strong negative effects from secondary smoke, even though the honest studies prior to the EPA ruling showed no such effect.

A similar meta-study was recently performed at Stanford, regarding the health effects of an all organic diet - so it now appears that if you can't prove something, it's considered scientifically valid to used a meta-study to prove whatever you want.

Prior to the bogus EPA report, a lot of people disliked smoking simply because they found smoke offensive. This had no effect on public policy. Once people were told that secondary smoke was a personal issue, the anti-smoking nazi's suddenly had something to work with.

But what can you expect. Our laws are made by a generation of people whose parents did not believe that LSD causes chromosome damage.

This is not a ban on smoking in the workplace, it's effectively a ban on employees smoking on their own time and in places, such as their own homes, outside of work.

This ban has nothing to do with second hand smoke. It's intended to reduce insurance and disability costs for the employer.

I expect the next ban will be on hiring people whose BMI or blood pressure or lipid profile are not in the healthy range due to their own personal habits (such as eating too much or not exercising three hours a week). Following that, I would expect a ban on hiring people who drink an 'unhealthy' amount of alcohol. Following that, perhaps passing an annual fitness test will be required for all city jobs even though there's no need for 'fitness' in the particular job the person is working.

I'm sure your health insurance company likes to blame that on smokers, but that's not how prices work. You're the one keeping the prices high; as long as you pay them, they have no incentive to lower them. Supply and demand drives prices, not so much costs.

However, your smoking does has an effect on me - if nothing but for financial reasons if you truly do smoke in a vacuum. Your statistically more likely to get sick, and to die early.

Would have to be calculated, and I am aware of official studies in Europe at least saying that overall a smoker is cheaper because they die earlier and are less likely to need years of care due to dementia et al. In addition, cigarettes are highly taxed in Europe to make up for whatever additional costs smokers might create. In practice it is so high that beyond additional health costs it also pays for a good deal of public infrastructure.

The sickness raises insurance premiums for everyone. When you die, it's statistically a large ordeal leading up to the death- multiple cardiac events, strokes, etc. Eventually you will die, but your insurance company will spend a lot of money keeping you alive, and the hospital will spend a lot of time caring for you.

They will do the same when I live healthy and suffer from Alzheimer's for two decades at the end. Again, a question of economics and statistics. And of course I have retaliation weapons: I practice Tai Chi Chuan a whole lot, out of my own budget and out of my own time. It may just mean that I won't fall in my old age and need a femur reconstruction, or new knee and hip joints due to bad posture. Do I get a refund for that? Can I demand that other people must practice Tai Chi Chuan as well? Can or should I be able to demand that people who do dangerous stuff at home - e.g., when renovating their house, or something - shoud not get health insurance benefits when they need them? No, and it's the right thing this way.

If you are old enough for socialized medicine, then you really do cost me more.

This does indeed effect me. The most I am gaining is some extra tax funds to the state...but those are short term gains. Long term, I am getting swindled.

And once more, present the numbers. I paid for my health insurance my whole life and will do so when old. If it is noth high enough, I hope that insurance maths and state regulation together will adapt it to a sustainable level.

It's terribly sad to see how the concept of solidarity was erased from several consecutive generations mostly in the US but in Europe as well.

Also, smoking likely decreases lifetime medical costs so old age "socialized" medicine (Medicare in the US) benefits from smokers dying younger. Everyone dies of something and that something will often cost money to treat. A smoker who dies suddenly of a massive stroke at 70 costs very little to society. A smoker who dies at 72 of lung cancer costs a bit more but a lot less than the non-smoker who dies with dementia and various "old age" ailments at 95 in a state of severe dementia in a nursing home paid for by Medicaid.

This! I have an interesting little tidbit that illustrates that perfectly.

My Mother in law died a few years back. She did not smoke nor drink. She spent the last ten years of her life in a nursing home as a dementia patient. The last two years of her life was extremely expensive, and she tapped her health insurance and Medicare for some hundreds of thousands of dollars. Probably half a million, but I don't have the figures handy.

My Mother on the other hand, who died at the same age as the Mother in Law, did smoke and enjoyed the occasional beer. She had a massive heart attack, and was gone in a few minutes. Aside from making mental notes that if I had a choice, I'd pick her demise over wearing diapers and not knowing who I was for the last ten years of my life, the cost of my mother's demise was minimal. Whether it was related to the smoking is not certain, but the point is that the belief that people living longer will save money is plain false.

Even with cause of death ignored, today's medical system is designed to get you on maintenance drugs as early as possible, so just the costs of your blood pressure meds, your cholesterol meds and whatever else they can get you to take every day keeps that old health care meter ever running. And the longer they can have you tapped into that maintenance med goodness, the more it costs your HCP.

Prohibition was a nightmare for the country and repealed for a reason. People have pleasure needs. Maybe you like to watch 14 hours straight of Zoey 101. Others like beer. Others like smokes. Others like fatty food. I even once knew a guy who's thing was hanging from the ceiling by rings pierced into his back.

I think the biggest point to be made here however, is "what is bad for you" is subjective, and once you let someones opinion dictate your life, life may stop being worth living.

Nicotine also increases the level of other neurotransmitters and chemicals that modulate how your brain works. For example, your brain makes more endorphins in response to nicotine. Endorphins are small proteins that are often called the body's natural pain killer. It turns out that the chemical structure of endorphins is very similar to that of heavy-duty synthetic painkillers like morphine. Endorphins can lead to feelings of euphoria also. If you're familiar with the runner's high that kicks in during a rigorous race, you've experienced the "endorphin rush." This outpouring of chemicals gives you a mental edge to finish the race while temporarily masking the nagging pains you might otherwise feel.

It's been proven that eating shit tons of fatty food is bad for you too, but the fact is the government is not actually there to protect you from yourself. Ban liquor and people make stills, ban weed and people grow the plants, ban cigarets and I'm sure people will find a way to get them. If it is not obvious by now it should be, people 'enjoy' doing all kinds of shit that is harmful to themselves.

People should be free to seek happiness, even if the mechanism of doing so is self-destructive. That includes the freedom to overeat, sit around and relax instead of exercise, spend too much time keeping their skin tan, watching movies/TV that makes them stupid, and on and on.

When your pleasure-seeking causes direct and significant harm to others, THEN you have a case for making it illegal. If it only harms yourself, self-determinacy trumps the nanny-state (or should, at least).

I will add, from a completely practical perspective, that when you make highly-desired goods illegal you create black markets (because humans make lousy slaves). The black markets then funnel significant money into the hands of criminals who have no qualms about murdering people to maintain their power base. Not only must I then live with these threats, but my tax money gets spent on more law enforcement which is generally ineffective no matter how much is spent and which takes away even MORE of my freedom in order to search for crime. So...making these things illegal causes very direct harm to me...much greater harm than keeping them legal causes me (should I free choose not to indulge).

Please note the generous use of derogatory terms like "hissy fit" to describe people who believe that others don't have the right to do what they want to with their own bodies. It's one of the refuges of the incompetent, with apologies to Isaac Asimov for mangling one of his better lines. I suppose we should just all accept whatever regulation or intrusion into our lives because somebody else knows what's best for us.

Regulations and rules are to protect people from the actions of other people or (usually) corporations. You want laws to require manufacturers and retailers to tell people cigarettes are bad for them, or how many calories are in that 64 oz super duper sized soft drink? Have at it. More information is better than less, and a lot of the tragedies we've had in this country result from people making decisions on bad information. Once people have good information, though, what they do is up to them provided it does no harm to others.

But..but..but...smoking! Yeah, yeah, we ban all indoor smoking in a knee jerk reaction without bothering to put any thought behind it. Like for example there are places where you pretty much have to go to live your life (retail stores, airports, offices, etc.) and there are places where you don't have to go if you don't want to (bars, casinos, homes, private clubs, etc.) Can't actually use brainpower there, can we? Also, never mind studies that show that places which install high-tech air cleaners have cleaner are inside than the air outside in many places, even when smoking is allowed in the building. Nope, gotta have that ban because...because...because smoking!

This is the kind of crap that leads to things like the War on Drugs, the War on Terror (whatever that is besides a freedom-grab) and of course Herr Bloomberg's soda nazi behavior. It's got to be stopped and stopped now before it gets worse, which it will if we don't take action to defend the rights of those who we might not agree with.

BTW, this might be a shocker after that rant, but I'm quite liberal, support a national single payer health system, and believe that the individual is more important than ANY organization, provided that individual is not harming anybody but himself or herself. In other words, I hold what I believe are classic American values which both liberals and conservatives used to hold without question, whatever else their differences. Now neither stereotyped "side" seems to. Sad...

See how Prohibition worked out for a good reason why trying to protext people from themselves by banning addictive products is a stupid idea.All that would happen is it would become yet another drug that is peddled by your local corner guy - at great profit to them and great cost to the community in trying to enforce the laws and lock up nicotine drug users.

I'm asthmatic. The smell of cigarettes makes me want to hack out a lung. But....

As long as what a person does does not hinder my personal space or health I don't see a need to make smoking illegal. I am tired of Mr Man making everything someone does illegal or more restrictive. If someone wants to smoke a pack at home let them. Make it against the rules to smoke on work time. Make them eligible to lose their job if they smoke from the time they walk in the door until the time they walk out the door. Don't take away their freedom to do something they enjoy.

If someone wants to smoke a pack at home let them. Make it against the rules to smoke on work time. Make them eligible to lose their job if they smoke from the time they walk in the door until the time they walk out the door.

I don't know if anybody "enjoys" smoking. They probably enjoyed it the first year or two when it was cool to hang out with the friends and feel cool "smoking", but nobody enjoys smelling like that all day long, or having their breath stink, or have your body take the toll it goes through from smoking. It's something that starts out socially, and then slowly but surely becomes incorporated into their daily living experience as a vice.

Someone needs to come up with some new "cool" way for people who hardly know each other can hang out and feel part something that doesn't involved sex, drugs, alcohol or smoking something. Smoking is a gateway to feel like you have friends. If you ask a stranger for a bite of a hamburger or a couple french fries they're going to think you're insane, ask for a light or a cigarette and they'll put down whatever they're doing and reach in their pocket and gladly help you out.

Same thing goes with the workforce. If you want to feel immediately cool, follow the group of people down to the smoking section and immediately there's a group of people who welcome you in to make you feel like you have a group of people to hang out with and talk to. Plus who can argue with going outside and talking with people all day long? It seems like smokers get the free-pass to leave their desk anytime they feel like it, and they have a good excuse.

With the high-school social desires of teens and interoffice acceptance of smoking it makes for tough competitor to "nothing".

Instead of putting all this money towards increased anti-smoking campaigns, all they would need to do is funnel a little bit of money into some sort of "social spots" that have gum, some candy, soda, water, nice chairs, and a place where it's accepted to hang out and talk for a few minutes and move on. This would give people the gratification they want to go into an area and hang out for a few minutes, talk, and go back to work. I think the problem with this idea is that there's no acceptable "need" to go down there every few hours. People might look at you as a slacker hanging down there, whereas the smoker doesn't get deemed a slacker for "going for a smoke"..

Not all smoking is cigarette smoking, despite what you and the people making these laws want to believe. I *enjoy* cigar smoking. A good cigar is delicious. Just like a good scotch. There is zero similarity between have a good cigar a few times per month (or even per week) and smoking a pack of cigarettes every day. The two activities are totally unrelated, except that they happen to both involve tobacco.

You're wanting it wrong. Put all the old people on their own health plan, they cost far more then smokers. Your typical smoker just tends to stroke out and die, yes some linger with terrible lung conditions and other ailments, but it's nothing like that other group of people... Yes healthy people, they get old and start suffering from shit that can't be fixed yet costs enormous amounts to treat over decades.

Anyway your entire premise of smokers driving up insurance rates sounds like bullshit, since per capi

I think the idea is that the employer wants cheaper health insurance. I wonder how many of the smokers never voted against politicians who made the war on drugs, and particularly drug testing in the workplace, part of their campaign platform.

Unfortunately, what could happen here is that the employee continues to smoke, but signs the affidavit, qualifying for the lower insurance rate, and then gets dropped and fired as soon as an encounter with the health care system reveals the lie. In this situation, the employer is happy, because insurance rates are low, and the employee gets screwed.

As a non-smoker (I can't even stand the smell of smoke on the person), And I supported the laws that banned smoking from work places and from bars in NY. However I think this finally crossed the line. Tobacco is still a legal substance and to test employees to see if they are smoking on their free time is crossing the line.

What is next fire employees who do not have the correct Body Mass Index (Because they should be eating healthy) or how about just firing people who got cancer or AIDS because chances are they made something that was an unhealthy life style decision.

New government standards set out the images and health warnings that must cover 75 percent of the front of cigarette packs. Among them: a gangrenous foot, a tongue cancer, a toilet stained with bloody urine, and a skeletal man named Bryan who is dying of lung cancer. Further warnings must appear on the sides and cover 90 percent of the back.

The High Court of Australia in August dismissed a claim by British American Tobacco (BTI), Philip Morris (MO), Imperial Tobacco, and Japan Tobacco International that the law illegally seizes their intellectual property by banning the display of trademarks. Appeals have also been lodged by Honduras, Ukraine, and the Dominican Republic at the World Trade Organization, claiming the law restricts the tobacco trade.

Cigarette makers are right to fear the regulations, says David Hammond, an expert in tobacco rules at the University of Waterloo in Canada: “Once tobacco control measures are established in one country, they spread.”

Here in Uruguay, we've had that for a couple of years, I think. A quick google images search of "uruguay paquetes de cigarrillos" will show you what that will look like (only the ones in Spanish are Uruguayan: www.google.com/search?q=uruguay paquetes de cigarrillos&tbm=isch).

They say that, in conjunction with a broad prohibition of smoking everywhere inside, it's working very well, esp. with young people

You are right. They let them keep their logos, the only prohibition on brands is that they can't have "modifiers" like a Light version and stuff, they need to sell each version with a new brand name. Of course, they can't advertise on tv, on the streets, and inside the shops all signs also have the ugly images.

They were talking on tv last week about a decrease of more than half of teenage smokers. When al this started I thought it was nonsense, but it's funny how it works. Smokers tend to hide their boxes,

As someone who smokes 2-3 cigars per month, works out religiously, yet couldn't get hired thanks to these ridiculous laws, I say you're wrong. Not all tobacco users are black-lunged smokers destined for the oxygen tank, just as not all people who eat are great big fatasses.

Making meat consumption illegal is not a likely consequence of making tobacco illegal.

However, both are equally absurd. Adults should be free to make their own decisions about their own health, choosing their own trade-offs between short-term pleasure and long-term consequences. The government should be stepping in to protect this important freedom, by preventing companies from screening/punishing employees for what they do on their own time.

For some strange reason, nicotine addiction is viewed in society as acceptable. If someone would stop working every few hours and go out for a drink they would be called an alcoholic and fired quickly. Yet when others take 'smoke breaks' with the same frequency noone seems to care. It's not a problem when you smoke every now and then (at least it's not my problem), but if you can't survive without nicotine for 8 hours that's a serious addiction.

Well I'm addicted to caffeine, my nephew is addicted to world of warcraft. My dad's addicted to hard work, he can't relax.

I think you've just heard 'addicted to crack' so often that you're putting too much weight on the word 'addicted'. Nicotine addition isn't a big problem to society, it's the *tar* that's the big problem in cigarettes. The nicotine is just a problem in that it makes them smoke and smoking is bad m-kay.

Coffee addition IS acceptable, not just VIEWED AS. There's nothing wrong with needing a

''if you can't survive without nicotine for 8 hours that's a serious addiction.''

I have noticed you, friend, leaving your cubicle frequently to urinate. Sometimes you even stop in the hallways and greet others, as if to compound this waste of valuable productive time. But then you have been observed stopping yet again -- for a big long gulp of water. Clearly this is an abusive cycle and you know that ingestion of water leads directly to urination, it's a fact.

If you'd just sip a cup of water at your desk, no more than your body needs, you could easily make the 8 hours without wasting the company's time.

If you don't need to urinate in an 8 hour stretch you are dehydrated. Water is the most fundamental chemical needed by the human body and you are comparing this with cravings caused by a drug addition.

Also sitting in a seat without break for 8 hours isn't very healthy either.

"stop working every few hours" would be a welcome improvement; there are people at my office that smoke at least 5 minutes out of every hour. They stink up the office, sometimes blocking the door open because, while they are able to carry a pack, lighter, and cell phone, they can't carry keys. They litter (even though there's a butt-receptacle), and I can't open my office window because of the smoke.

Smoking cigarettes is a filthy addiction, and not just because of the health issues. If I went and rolled

My biggest problem with smokers and their smoke breaks is that many companies don't extend the same paid breaks to non-smokers. I have worked several places where smokers left the building to go smoke for 15 minutes every 1-2 hours, and yet if I wandered off from my desk that often for that long I was threatened with termination. (I will note that I don't work at any of those places any more, but the point still stands)

I have to stop working every few hours too. honestly, i don't think i can work more than an hour straight. At best, i can manage a couple of pomodoros. I don't smoke, but I also don't know if smokers are going on a smoke break because they need the cigarette or because nobody that i know can go for hours without getting up and walking around, Smokers just happen to fill the down time with smoking.

In Belgium where I work, we work 7.5 hours per day. From 9 till 12 and 12:30 till 17:00. In the morning and in the afternoon I get 10 minutes of break time.

This is not only me, this is the whole country (and probably the whole EU). So we stop working every few hours and go out. Some go out for a smoke. Some go out and eat chocolate cake and some go out and stare at their phone. As long as you get back in time, nobody cares. My of my cow orkers go along with the smokers when they take their 10 minute break.

I couldn't stand the highly technical coding I do for a job without my periodic "Cigarette Break". Every couple of hours I go outside into fresh air, light up a cig, see some daylight, and let my mind relax for a moment, to recharge for another 2 hour bout of the highly quantitative stuff I do. Nobody should be hired/fired or not based on whether they smoke cigarettes. ------ Yes, cigarettes are not good for you in the long run. But it isn't anybody's business what you do or don't do with your own body. ---- It is idiotic how harshly non-smokers try to wean smokers off cigarettes. Tobacco products are not illegal. Nobody has a right to tell me that I can't smoke if I want to "keep my job".

I couldn't stand the highly technical coding I do for a job without my periodic "Cigarette Break". Every couple of hours I go outside into fresh air, light up a cig, see some daylight, and let my mind relax for a moment, to recharge for another 2 hour bout of the highly quantitative stuff I do.

I quit smoking just a bit over two weeks ago; and this is what I'm finding hardest so far.

I'm also a coder; and responsible for a lot of product planning matters as well. I used to use my cigarette breaks as "unwinding" time. Now that I'm not smoking, I take fewer breaks (generally just one in the morning; one for lunch; and one in the afternoon) and the lack of "unwinding" is really causing problems for me. I tried increasing my breaks back to the same as when I smoked, but since it's still so soon after quitting, each break reminds me too much of wanting to light up and it really stresses me out more than letting me relax.

If you ever decide to quit, be wary of this... I don't have a good solution - I'm just counting on that it'll get easier with time.

Smokers need smoke breaks - it is not just you in your 'highly technical coding job'. Again a lot of people do the very same tasks (including your highly technical coding) without smoke breaks. So compared to the average coder, you are handicapped by your need.

You could say the same about women and tea drinkers, who average more frequent bathroom breaks.

A snuff or patch user won't need any breaks due to their habit. Yet they are caught in this dragnet too.

A) This is covered in most places I know of. There is either a designated smoking area or a rule about smoking within a certain number of feet of any doorway. Many cities have laws covering their buildings for the latter.

B) Pass the increased insurance premiums and other costs directly off to the individual.

C) Invalid argument. Drunk or high at work impairs your performance, possibly dangerously so. Having a smoke doesn't.

Or at least not the cancer causing problem. The tarry tobacco smoke builds up inside your lungs and prevents them from cleaning themselves properly. While nicotine does have circulatory implications its not transmissable by touch as far as I'm aware. Applying tests typical for contraband narcotics is not justifiable unless nicotine use is ruled as a hazard or detrimental to productivity or health and safety.

Yea, work here is doing that too. We had an open window of time to certify that we were tobacco free so we can save $80 a year (or something) off our insurance. Plus we had to tell the insurance company within 10 days if we smoked after we certified.

And work requires you to walk all the way off property to smoke. So smokers have a little hike to get to the other side of the parking lot to take a smoke break and you're not allowed to sit in your car and smoke while in the work parking lot. You have to get of

If the rest of us are going to pay for their health care through insurance, we deserve the right to shut them off from their carcinogenic cigarettes.

There is a bit of a slippery slope here. If diet soft drinks cause cancer, we should have the right to shut those off, too. At some point, we're going to find certain genes are responsible for susceptibility to cancer too (well beyond the 17% of smokers who get lung cancer [decodeme.com]). We should have the right to shut them out, too.

Seems to me there was already a movie (Gattica) about that. Any gambler will take every chance possible to reduce his risk. Insurance of ANY kind is gambling; in this case, you're gambling you'll get sick, the insurance company (and, by proxy, the employer) is gambling you won't. Taken to its logical conclusion, only genetically-perfect, clean-living supermen will be employable.

If the rest of us are going to pay for their health care through insurance

You have missed the whole point of insurance, which is a gamble where most people lose a little, but are covered in case they need a lot.

That's okay, the insurance companies miss this pesky little fact too, and as they strive to approach better accuracy in risk prediction, they forget that as accuracy approaches unity, everyone approach paying what their own future costs would be, plus the overhead of the insurance company. In other words, we would be better off without insurance.

This is just ridiculous. We need federal laws specifying that an employer has no right to dictate or ask what employees does when they're not working.If they want control over workers 24/7 and need to control their future health, it isn't called employment, but something else, which already is illegal.

If I want to spend my time off doing things people don't like, that shouldn't be anyone's business but mine. Whether it's smoking, skydiving, wild orgies, satanic rituals, or all of that at the same time.

I'm an ardent anti-smoker but that doesn't lead me to support idiotic employment rules. The overall problem of health care (and guess what: I support single-payer) really should be none of a company's business. So long as the employee gets his work done, is reliable, and doesn't adversely affect his cow-orkers, what he does off the clock is his business. I have no problem with a company banning tobacco use on company property&time (or banning alcohol; and I wish they'd ban cube radios playing country music too), but testing employees for off-work use of either legal or controlled substances should be flat out illegal.

So, It's illegal to refuse to hire somebody because of sexual orientation,skin color, country or origin,religion, and a bunch of other stuff. But it's ok to discriminate based on after-hours smoke-inhaling? The world is fucking stupid.

Don't get me wrong, I believe any business should be allowed to hire whoever the fuck they want,and discriminate based on anything, even race and other protected characteristics. If you don't wanna hire black people, smokers, or homosexuals, it's up to you. I refuse to hire religious idiots, and it's my fucking right too.

But the government belongs to EVERYBODY, so the government CAN'T engage in such discriminatory activities. And they can't promote it. Blacks, Jews and Woman have acquired equal rights, and are rarely discriminated anymore. Homosexuals are towards that goal. Right now, the single most attacked and discriminated group are smokers. Marijuana users aren't as discriminated against as tobacco smokers. WTF

Ok then. Do the same for grease food. Put gross pictures of obese people trying to wipe their ass in mcdonald's food packaging, and write "Fast Food causes morbid obesity" in bold black letter all over it. Do the same for alcohol, bacon, cars, detergents, cellphones, soda, chocolate, candy and salt.Everything causes cancer. Being alive is the leading cause of death. Deal with it.

And, based on your argument, let's also ban hiring disabled people, because they have greater health insurance costs too.

Let's not hire Woman either, since they might get pregnant and that means increasing health insurance spending, and maternity days, and sick days for her and her newborn. And getting pregnant is a lifestyle choice, just like smoking, so it's not really discrimination, all they have to do is stop getting pregnant, right?

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

Tying employment to health insurance has lots of downsides, and this is one of them. Without that coupling, there would typically be no reason for employers to know anything at all about what you do in private outside of working hours.

I'm not a smoker. I hate the smell. But I don't agree with this. The last time I checked tobacco was legal to purchase and use. If it's a question of health insurance costs then what's next? Should we also exclude hiring people that are overweight, or have high blood pressure, or their lipid count is too high? Because surely they will consume health care dollars at some point too. What about people that have too much stress? Exclude them too? What happens if nobody will hire people that smoke? Should we just categorize them as permanently disabled and have society support them...or maybe just send them to a leper colony?

This is a clear example of exactly why I don't want employers involved with health insurance. Sooner or later it comes down to money and then things like this happen.

Personally I think that alcohol is a far, far greater problem to society than tobacco. Here is an indisputable fact - 100% of all drunk driving accidents and deaths are caused by alcohol. All of them...every single one. I can't prove this but my feeling is that a good percentage of assaults and domestic violence incidents are fueled, at least in part, by alcohol. In nearly every bar fight I have ever seen both of them were drunk. I'm not suggesting that alcohol has the same effect on everyone but it sure messes up a lot of people.

Smoking is bad for you no question. Anyone that smokes should try to quit. People can get addicted to tobacco much like people can get addicted to alcohol. Instead of excluding tobacco users from the work force why not try to help them quit? If a smoker has the qualifications then hire them but tell them, look we'd rather you didn't smoke. Science has proven that it's bad for your health and we'd rather have healthy workers than unhealthy workers. It's better for you and it's better for us. So here's what we're going to do. We have a smoking cessation program and we'd like you to attend it. It's going to be part of your on-boarding process. We're going to pay for it and our expectation is that at the end of it you're going to be tobacco free. We're doing this because we think you'd be a good employee and we like to treat our employees right. At the end of it you're going to thank us. Your children will thank you because you'll live long enough to see their children. You'll feel better about yourself and that's the kind of people we want working here. What do you say?

I hate smoking personally but this sort of restriction is discrimination, imo. You should not be able to have laws that stop you from hiring people for using legal products unless there is a clear case that it will hinder performance (like alcoholism). America is definitely not the land of the free now.

I'm posting this once instead of replying to the 45 or so posts that mention this. Smokers do not raise your insurance premiums.

I'll repeat for emphasis:

*Smokers do not raise your insurance premiums.*

Smokers pay higher insurance premiums because they are in a different risk pool. You might be paying higher premiums for fat people, but the moment one of those tubsters develops diabetes or whatever, their premiums go up, so you're not paying as much as you think. Under Obamacare, granted, that changes slightly, because the law now makes it more difficult for insurance companies to raise premiums on policy holders who develop ongoing health issues. But smokers are already paying higher premiums just for smoking, before they even get in the doctor's office door.

So, you are not paying for smokers' health insurance premiums. Get off your respective high horses. And loosen up, god, you must be the people who go to a party and complain about the music being too loud.

Also, this is how you know that south Florida is not actually part of the South. It's actually a southern colony of Connecticut, and should be treated accordingly.

Also also, if you live in a country with socialized medicine, you may very well be paying for smokers via taxes, but they're also probably paying a ton of tax on cigarettes, so get over yourself, commie.

It seems so easy for some power hungry and repressed social misfits to suggest bringing the force of the armed government thugs down on any little habit they don't like these days. Yeah, let's SWAT raid someone's house because they chewed some tobacco. Great idea.
I'm seeing a lot of idiots here that are happy to call for enforcement at the job, off the job and now let's make it against the law altogether to smoke.

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Stated another way, it is the right of the people to abolish ANY government that becomes destructive to the people's pursuit of Life, Liberty and Happiness.

Happiness is always subjective and temporal. You cannot predict it, calculate it or mandate happiness. It belongs to the individual and the closest we can come to quantifying it is by allowing an unhampered economy to perform economic calculations and examine prices of ends and means relative to one another. Such an economy will deliver the most happiness to the greatest number of people.

Furthermore how can you be posting on Slashdot? Ye readers of ignorant of classic science fiction. Have you not read your Asimov? You cannot and should not go down the road where you try to protect humans from all risk. It leads to a life not worth living. Unfortunately, all of you little Hitler, Stalin or Mussolini wannabes will realize a little too late that you won't be the man or woman in charge of the oppressive government you try to construct and if you succeed, you will have lives not worth living by your own hands.

Or you secretly... WANT IT? That guy walks by with his cigarette and for an instant, before any rational thought is possible, there's that overwhelming desire. For a heartbeat you would stab that man in his face for his cigarette! And then it passes, and you hate yourself for being that predictable. Even though it's 10 years later and you tell yourself you're happy without it in your life, that you don't need a cigarette to have a good time, you realize in that instant that all those words are hollow, that

Isn't it astounding how many of the "problems" involving health care financing that show up at Slashdot would be solved with single-payer, or regulation of medical insurance companies so that the system is functionally single-payer? And that 33 of 34 OECD countries have figured that out? And just coincidentally, that those 33 all have substantially lower spending for similar (and in several cases superior) health outcomes than the US?

Not to mention that a single-payer system that brought health-care spending into line with the rest of the world would free up substantial amounts to support research in areas such as fusion, space, etc?